


Reliable

by Splinter



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Action, Canon-Typical Injuries, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, argument, buzzard attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 12:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8446462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/pseuds/Splinter
Summary: She’s been so careful about giving him space, not taking him for granted. Sometimes that’s not what he wants, though he doesn’t know how to say that, how to offer that honestly.





	

It had started that morning. They’re in the garage early, giving the rig a last once-over before the run. Furiosa is prodding at the mirrors. They’re replacements, the originals long broken. Finding something full-sized has been impossible. She and the blackthumbs have built up patchwork of smaller mirrors, not too badly cracked, taken from other cars. Max can see her frowning at it, still dissatisfied with the coverage.

“Saw some big mirrors up north,” he offers. “Trade settlement had a whole lot of them. Last time I was there.” That had been almost a hundred days ago. This is the longest he’s ever stayed, the longest he’s stayed without getting the urge to run. Thinking that can still give him a twitch of fear, the idea that just by being here he might bring his ghosts and demons down on all their heads. Today the twitch is minor, overshadowed by a warm feeling that he’s been here all this time, and by an idea.

“No promises,” he says, “but a good source.” He takes a deep breath. “Could go after this.” It had been four days’ drive, in the skeleton of a car that he’d been driving last time. They could do it faster, perhaps in a truck with trade goods; she’d be back in time for the next run. And he likes the idea of driving out together, suspects she’d welcome a chance to get out into the desert. He looks at Furiosa, who is still tweaking the fastening on one of the mirrors.

“If you want,” she says, carefully. “It would be helpful.” Max feels deflated. He should be pleased, but there’s something he’s missing. Then he gets it: she thinks he’s telling her he’s leaving.

“We wouldn’t have to be gone for long. S’not far.” She looks up at that, and he’d been right: she had thought he was going to leave. She’s smiling at him now, surprised and pleased and so very beautiful.

“We could do that,” she says.

“Back within the week,” he says, because somehow it seems important to explain properly. “Six days.” Weeks and months are words of his childhood, and get blank looks these days.

They don’t have time to say more. The crew are arriving, Lug and Liz checking over ammunition, asking Furiosa’s opinion about numbers before scrambling up to the rear gunner perch. Capable, Cheedo, Toast and the Dag turn up in a flurry. Cheedo and Capable will be conducting negotiations; they’ve just come from a last conversation with Corpus Colossus, checking finer points of Citadel supply projections. Toast is driving the lead pursuit car. The Dag is only there to wave them off, which doesn’t stop her giving high-handed instructions to everyone.

“And you,” she tells Max. “Don’t do anything insane.” He’s surprised by how fondly she says it. Everyone’s getting on board, Capable and Cheedo already in the cab as he climbs in beside Furiosa. She’s already focused, bright as steel as she prepares to drive onto the lift.

It’s a good run to Gastown, and a successful negotiation when they get there. Capable and Cheedo bargain hard, spreading out their ledgers for show, but knowing every detail without needing to consult them. Capable is sweetly reasonable, pointing out the benefits of each trade. Cheedo will cut in, using what sounds like youthful naivety to ask very tough questions.

On the return journey, Max notices that Furiosa is still bothered by her mirrors, repeatedly checking them, trying to see around the blind spots. It takes him back to their earlier conversation. He wants to dwell on the thought of a trade journey, until it hits him that she assumed he was going to leave. Something drops in his stomach.

He can’t say it wasn’t a fair guess. He’s come and gone, at first because he was only visiting, several times since because panic had driven him out. There’s no guarantee that it won’t happen again, more likely than not. For the moment, he sleeps in her bed and works beside her in the gardens and the garage, eats with the sisters and the Vuvalini, amuses the Dag’s small daughter. He doesn’t know if he will ever be able to settle at the Citadel, or if he’s right to guess that sometimes Furiosa yearns for the horizon. She’s been so careful about giving him space, not taking him for granted. Sometimes that’s not what he wants, though he doesn’t know how to say that, how to offer that honestly.

There’s a shout from Toast’s car, echoed by hollering from the back of the rig. Buzzards are coming from the left, the spines of their cars just visible on the brow of the rocky slope. They’re beyond their own territory, which means they’re desperate or ambitious. Once they realise they’re seen, they accelerate, driving into attack. Max is already clambering into the back seat, getting to the window behind Furiosa, when he hears her scream.

There’s blood on her shoulder, pouring down her shortened left arm. The bullet is buried in the toughened glass of the windshield, surrounded by shivered lines: the Buzzards must have at least one decent long-range gun. Cheedo hurls herself into the footwell behind the seat, ripping her skirt into a pad for Furiosa’s bloody shoulder. From the angle, from the way Furiosa is still driving, it’s missed vital organs, but there’s still the risk of blood loss, of infection, of further damage to her nub.

There isn’t time to check, with four Buzzard cars already close and firing. Toast engages the lead car, with an exchange of shots that puts the Buzzard vehicle out of action.

There are four cars – large for a breakaway group, or maybe this is the main body, still without bigger vehicles after their last major clash with Citadel forces. Capable – who can shoot, and isn’t bad – is on the other side of the cab, firing at the second Buzzard. Furiosa is fanging it, but the third car is already catching up alongside; he can hear the scream of metal, spikes grating against the rig’s side.

There’s a roar from behind and overhead, followed by an explosion.

“Second Buzzard down,” Capable reports. Max is firing at the third, aiming for the driver through the spiked car’s glassless windshield. One of the Buzzard lancers is hanging out of the door, ready for attack. 

Max’s second shot hits the driver. The car slows, uncontrolled, just as the lancer launches himself at the rig window. He was aiming for Furiosa, but the change of speed and direction sends him smashing against Max’s door, grabbing hold and starting to climb in. There’s a smell of rotting flesh, horrible wet noises as he goes for Max’s throat.

The Buzzard’s hands are sticky, clumsy with unravelling bandages but still powerful. Max lunges back, trying to push him back out of the rig. He’s choking, starting to see spots by the time he gets them to the window, dragged half out himself as the Buzzard lurches backwards. Capable grabs Max’s legs as he tilts on the door frame, pulled in two directions.

The Buzzard has got one foot onto the step by Furiosa’s door, a purchase that allows him to pull Max harder, despite Capable’s grasp on his feet. Furiosa turns the wheel, hard, shaking the lot of them. Max feels Cheedo fall against his side, knows that she’s got dislodged, that she must be scrabbling to get the pad back in place on Furiosa’s bleeding shoulder. He still doesn’t know how bad the wound is, how much damage she’s driving through. But it works: the Buzzard loses his footing.

Suddenly he’s a dead weight on Max, pulling him down from the window. Max grabs the handhold bracket by the door and heaves, pulling himself out of the rig but swinging the Buzzard out into the road. That does it: the Buzzard falls, leaving Max clinging to the side of the rig.

There’s a firefight blazing behind him, the two Citadel pursuit vehicles handling the last Buzzard car as Max manages to get one foot back onto the step. Then he hears the roar of another engine.

It’s the first Buzzard car, recovered from Toast’s attack and returning to the fight. It’s accelerating fast, aiming to pull alongside. He can only see one Buzzard inside, but his own gun is back inside the rig, dropped on the floor in the scuffle.

“Get in,” Furiosa tells him, through her teeth. “Get back in.” Capable’s getting the door open for him. He turns on the step, going as fast as he can. The last Buzzard is driving close, in one of the rig’s blind spots. Furiosa would usually drive it off the track, but she won’t risk getting those spikes near Max: she’s driving straight ahead until he’s back inside.

Then he sees the driver. The throttle must be jammed: the Buzzard is standing up, poking up through the ripped-open roof of the vehicle, a thunderstick aimed at Furiosa’s window. Max doesn’t have a gun, knows Capable isn’t holding hers, can’t make the shot in time.

He grips the bracket with both hands and swings right out into the road. He’s swiping at the thunderstick with his legs, aiming as low as he can in the hope that it won’t just go off and take half his body with it. When his legs connect, he scissors them, pulling the thunderstick out of the driver’s hands. For one moment, he feels it catch in in his brace, thinks the whole thing is going to blow. Then it falls free, untangling from his legs and tipping into the Buzzard car as Max swings back onto the step.

Furiosa is already fanging it, turning the wheel to get away faster. The explosion knocks Max against the side of the rig, trying not to breathe as the cloud of smoke envelops him. He’s dizzy and sick, lungs screaming for air, but he’s got a tight grip on the bracket. Once the smoke clears, Capable grabs his arm, starts to help him back in. He makes it to the back seat and throws up.

“Gone,” Cheedo announces. There’s a second explosion behind them: “That was the last, Toast’s okay.” She’s still holding the padding in place on Furiosa’s shoulder. “Capable, you okay to drive?” Max stirs, but Cheedo glares at him. “We’ll crash if you pass out. Capable hasn’t had a lungful of smoke.” Max wants to protest – he held his breath, he doesn’t think the damage is bad – but Capable is already in the front seat, ready to switch places as Furiosa jams the throttle.

“No casualties?” Toast shouts from the pursuit vehicle, pulling alongside. “What in hell was Max doing?”

“No casualties, some damage,” Capable shouts back, ignoring the other question, then concentrates on driving. Max watches Furiosa, who is sitting up carefully in the front seat as Cheedo binds her shoulder. She’s lost blood, her prosthetic soaked with it, but she looks less woozy than he feels. He focuses on breathing as they pull in to the Citadel.

Cheedo and Capable hustle Max and Furiosa out of the rig, onto the lift that will take them to the infirmary. As the pulleys start to work, Furiosa is still giving instructions over her shoulder, telling the blackthumbs what to check first and trying to see that Lug drives the rig safely to the machine shop.

The infirmary is hardly recognisable from its time as the Organic Mechanic’s place, but Max still hates it. Mel, the Vuvalini healer, looks long-suffering at the sight of them. Capable and Cheedo are giving an unflattering account of the fight, while Furiosa is taken off for cleaning and stitching. Max is protesting, trying to offer blood if she needs it, while Mel plugs him into one of the Citadel’s precious oxygen canisters. Joe had stockpiled them, paid huge sums in water for better air; even so, they’re not to be squandered.

“She hasn’t lost much, from the look of it,” Mel says, taking pity on him. “Cheedo’s got a head on her shoulders.”

By the time they’ve finished with Furiosa, she and her team are pleased with Max’s progress. His burns and cuts are minor, and though his throat is bruised he didn’t take in much smoke. The oxygen is mostly a precautionary measure. Once he’s got the mask off, they let him in to see Furiosa.

She’s sitting up in the high infirmary bed, bandaged and patched, dressed in a clean shirt. Her metal arm is on a table to the side, still bloody, waiting for cleaning. Max stands in the doorway, trying to assess her injuries, until Mel shoos him into the low chair by the bed.

Furiosa isn’t fragile, but there’s a brittleness to the carriage of her head, a tension that isn’t just about bandages or blood loss. Her eyes are shadowed, dark circles under them.

They read each other well, usually, carrying what they need to know in their bodies. He recognises himself in plenty of her reactions. He knows others so well that he can’t remember learning them. Right now, it’s as if he doesn’t understand anything.

He’s about to reach for her hand, because touch is so often a solution for them. Then he stops, halted by a horrifying thought of her flinching away. She’s angry, and he thinks she’s frightened, and the aftermath of adrenaline is not helping either of them with this.

“Hey?” he tries, voice croaky.

“Hey,” she replies, but it’s flat. She takes a deep breath, and another.

By now, Max is close to panic. She’s leaning against the wall, shoulders tight. If she reacted like that to anyone else, he’d already be bristling, ready to back her up. But it’s for him. He can feel anger rising: because he thinks he’s being accused, because it’s easier than being scared, and he is very scared. And he knows where fear and anger can take him, could still take him.

“You nearly got killed out there,” she says.

“Buzzard was aiming for you.”

“So you throw yourself on a thunderstick? I could have run them off the road if you’d got in. Capable could’ve shot –”

“Wasn’t ready. Not her fault.”

He thinks she’s right, really. It was a bigger risk than necessary; if he’d got in faster, if he’d focused on that rather than looking for threats to her window –

“It’s hard enough stopping the boys gunning for Valhalla, but I expect that from them. Not from you.”

“Didn’t want to leave you open,” he admits. Running to her side has become second nature, but this had been more protective than practical.

“Basic defense, yes. But jumping on a thunderstick?”

“Was aimed at you,” he says, because it’s all he has to explain it, because it’s true.

“And aimed at you is any better?” If she was angry before, she’s furious now.

“Yes.”

She’s staring at him, eyes wet and jaw hard. He’s suddenly exhausted, flat and hopeless.

“You’d be dead,” he says, hearing the distance in his own voice. She’s a thousand miles away, which hurts, but takes the choking weight out of his throat, makes it possible to speak. “You’d be dead, and you’d live in my head, telling me that I let you die.” When he looks at her, he can almost see the hollow nose and eye sockets of her accusing ghost. He closes his eyes. “This place. Won’t survive without you, yet. And I’d never see you again. I’d see you every day.” If he leaves now, leaving her whole and alive, it won’t be his fault. He won’t have to see the Citadel crumbling without her. He wants his car, wants the desert, wants to get away.

Being a knight in shining armour was burnt out of him long ago. It had been part of why he’d joined the Main Force Patrol, a romantic idea of protection. Where he’d hankered after grand gestures, he’d found mess and futility and paperwork, the knowledge that nobody cared. After that, he’d found that trying to protect the people you love isn’t romantic, it’s fear and panic and a sick feeling that won’t go, that goes only when you fail and it’s over. He can feel dread rising again. He’s dizzy with it, his eyes darting, his mind skittering.

There’s a silence. He’s twitching, wondering how soon he can get out of this room, get out of here.

“Don’t – can’t you see it’s the same for me.” She’s still angry. “I don’t – I don’t see people. But I’ve lost them.” Her voice is shaking, but she pushes on. “I don’t want to lose you.”

When Furiosa’s hand touches his arm, he has a flinch reaction he can only half suppress. He wants to take her hand, part of him wants to take her hand, but he can’t make himself do it. He hears her take a long, wet breath, and opens his eyes. She’s taken her hand away.

“You matter,” she says. “You matter to us. You – you matter to me.”

Max doesn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t know how to make promises. He is not reliable, he isn’t, he can’t guarantee that he’ll be here. He’d wanted her to take him for granted, but he doesn’t know how to live up to that. Staying is harder than dying.

The silence lasts until Mel and the girls come in.

“Didn’t follow my advice,” the Dag says, though she’s brought some fruit down for them both. She’s standing very close to Cheedo, always near enough to touch. Mel is checking Furiosa’s bandages.

Everybody assumes that Max will be sleeping in the chair by her bed. That’s what they do when one of them is injured, unless they can get out of the infirmary altogether. This time, Max isn’t sure if he’s welcome, if they can actually do this. Suggesting anything different will be even worse, so he doesn’t. It’s not that the others don’t see Furiosa’s bristling anger, but they’re reading it as frustration, her usual reaction to the infirmary. He knows it’s something else, and squirms at it.

“Try to sleep. And you, stay in that chair,” Mel says to Max. Her face changes as she looks at him, but she rushes on. “I’ll be in to check, I’ll try to keep it quiet.” She shepherds the girls back out, leaving them alone.

Max wishes he could curl up with Furiosa, despite Mel’s prohibitions, but it’s out of the question. She’s angry, he’s raw. They’re both injured, too, though that doesn’t occur to him as an obstacle.

“Fool,” she says. It’s a long time since she called him that. He remembers her frustration, that first time, and his own stubbornness. He’d asked if it mattered. It always had. They’re in this state because it still does, more than ever.

Her bed is a real Before hospital bed, raised much higher than his chair. When he looks up at her, she has her face turned away from him, blinking up at the ceiling. Max leans sideways, rests his head against her side. She’s so tense, her muscles rigid under his cheek. But she doesn’t flinch or pull away, so he holds still, makes himself wait. After a moment, she relaxes a little. He twists round, rests his arm over her legs. He can feel the warmth of her body through her clothes, thinks he can smell her skin under the strong infirmary scent of herbs and soap. She looks at him, her gaze fierce and wet.

“Fool,” Furiosa says again, more vehemently this time. Her voice is harsh, but her hand is gentle in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone on slack, particularly I'm at [singlewhitecatlady](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SingleWhiteCatLady/pseuds/SingleWhiteCatLady) for car repair suggestions.
> 
> I'm at [lurkinghistoric](http://lurkinghistoric.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


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